A Study in Curiosity
Chapter 3
Shai probably should have seen that question coming, honestly. I mean, this person clearly had no knowledge of her people, and that was just too much of a blank to leave unfilled. She hadn’t been expecting it, however, and as a result ended up spending several seconds sputtering while she worked out an answer. “That is… hard to answer without revealing too much, but I guess the main part is that humans called my people the fae, our magical affinity made us very coveted by powerful people, and about ten hundred years ago, our people… went to a place where your people couldn’t hurt us.”
Aubrey blinked her giant eyes, seeming to take a moment to process what Shai had said. “Well. Uh. That- I’m so sorry.”
Shai shrugged, exaggerating the motion a bit to make sure Aubrey could see. “It wasn’t really you, this stuff happened a few generations ago, even for our people. Really, I came here to explore whether humans had changed their ways at all since then.”
The woman gave a weak chuckle, followed by an overly long and awkward sigh that Shai decided not to investigate for the time being, before leaning forward and changing the subject. “Well I guess it really should be your turn now, but that answer brings up some ancillary questions, mainly: you came here? You came here using magic?”
This question took Shai much more by surprise. “... yes? Was that not clear?” She knew the humans weren’t very good at reaching out towards magic, but was it really so rare that it would come as a shock to see it used?
Aubrey opened her mouth for a moment, then closed it again, Shai felt as though she could actually see the gears in the massive woman’s head learning to turn around this new information. After a few moments of silence, Aubrey spoke. “So magic is real?” And at this, Shai actually laughed out loud.
Aubrey was taken aback by Shai’s laughter, it rang out clear and audible in the relative silence of her room. Shai had seemed relatively confident for being so, so small, but the way she laughed so freely made Aubrey feel as though she had said something exceptionally stupid. This was only reinforced a moment later, when Shai said “of course magic is real, how could you ever reach the conclusion that it wasn’t?”
Aubrey found herself blushing at this, as she had thought that not believing in magic was a relatively acceptable stance. “It’s just that, well, how does it work? What sort of things can it do? What is it?” Aubrey’s mind was already jumping to what kind of implications this had, how it could be explored, mapped, discovered. The only thing that could come out of her mouth was, “can you show me?”
Shai wasn’t given the opportunity to answer, however, as at that moment the door to Aubrey’s room opened. Acting on base instinct that she had gained from learning how to hide secrets in this room over her high school years, Aubrey scooped Shai up and placed her haphazardly in the nook created by her desktop tower and one of her monitors, that had mostly been filled with one tilted over book, then turned around just in time to see her sister, Laura, standing in the door. “Hey there, L, what’s up?”
“I just wanted to ask you to quiet down, I’ve gotta get up early tomorrow, for the festival.” Aubrey started for a moment, looking around for her clock, to see that it was already nearly eleven PM.
“Oh, uh, yeah sure. Sorry to bother you.”
Laura nodded tiredly. “K, thanks. Who were you talking to?”
Aubrey tried her best to be nonchalant, she knew that sound carried exceptionally well between their two rooms, could she have heard any details of the conversation? Shaking the worry from her head, Aubrey decided to play it cool. “Oh I was just on the phone with Rein, it’s still pretty early where they are. Oh, could you close the door again on your way-” But it was no use, as Laura had already decided she was too tired to properly end the conversation, and had walked off down the hall, leaving the door to Aubrey’s room wide open. Aubrey sighed as she got up to close it again, keeping a secret around here was majorly inconvenient. Remembering said secret, Aubrey hopped back over to her desk, gently pushing the book aside.
“I am so sorry about that, it’s just that, well, I wasn’t sure if you wanted anyone else knowing about you yet, or how they would react, or…” She trailed off, seeing that the diminutive figure was laid on her back, crying.
Shai took a few minutes to regain her composure after that moment, and of course Aubrey was fussing over her at every step. She was showing remarkable restraint, although she was clearly stressed out over having upset her guest, she sat at a greater distance than she had before, asking what she could do to help very quietly. Shai had insisted that she was fine, but Aubrey was still clearly anxious.
She was fine, although she wasn’t quite sure how to articulate why. These weren’t the kind of tears shed from emotional duress, the kind that built and built and demanded to be felt, to be let out. No, these were simply the tears that came from unexpected physical force, the kind that just happened, not requiring any input. Despite the shocking nature of the ordeal, she found that she wasn’t really scared during any part of it. She knew Aubrey didn’t want to hurt her, as she’d had ample opportunity to do that so far, and that seemed to be enough to let her push her survival instincts into the background.
Having somewhat regained herself after her unwitting breakdown, Shai stepped up to Aubrey and confidently said, “magic aside, I believe it’s my turn to ask a question?” Aubrey gave her a bit of a quizzical look, she clearly had forgotten what conversation they were having when all of this started.
“I suppose so, although to be fair I guess I asked two questions, so you should get two as well.”
Shai nodded, looking around at the surface she was on. Eventually she landed on the obelisk she had been hidden against, it seemed mostly uniform, with a few holes and concave pieces on the nearest face. “What is the purpose of this item?”
Aubrey stared for just a moment, deciding where to start, before sighing and speaking. “That is… a very complicated question, although I suppose its primary purpose is to store information, so that you can access it later.”
Shai cocked her head slightly. “Like a book?” She had seen books strewn about the room, she knew humans still used those to store information.
“Similar in purpose, but this is much more complex in execution. This is a database in and of itself, containing thousands of books worth of information that you can access through an interface, here.” Aubrey reached a massive arm up, over Shai’s head, and pressed in one of the concave structures she had noticed earlier. Upon doing this, the surface of one of the slabs flared into light, displaying an image of a serene forest setting, which caused Shai to jump slightly. Aubrey then laid her arm on the desk, her hand resting on a strange roundish contraption to her right, and Shai was trying very hard not to think about how that arm was nearly as wide as she was tall. To achieve this, she looked back at the image. It was remarkably realistic.
“See, this image is just one that can be stored here, you use this thing to interact, and you can navigate to anything else stored on the drive. She moved the roundish thing around, and an analogous motion was made by a strange triangle icon on the lit surface. It was strange, she could see the image moving, although there was no physical component to that movement, the surface stayed completely and perfectly flat. How could this have been done, if not magic? Shai looked closer, squinting, until she used a tad of her Perception, and it finally clicked.
It’s not moving. Each moment was made up of a slightly different image, creating the illusion of movement when played in succession. And all of this was done via mundane methods? Shai grinned as she stepped forward. This, this was why she had come here. Humans had always been more… innovative than the fae, and their creations achieved a combination of utility and ingenuity that Shai had always wanted to understand, to map, to replicate. Her mouth hadn’t even fully caught up with her brain yet, but every part of her was on the same page regarding what to do next, so it said “How does it work?”
Aubrey grinned a little, showing off an impressive canine tooth that was nearly as long as Shai’s forearm (Had Shai’s mind not been entirely fixated on the process of discovering, she might have found it in her to be intimidated), and spoke very softly when she said “That is a much larger question, we might be here awhile.”
Go back to the first chapter here, or read the next chapter of the story here!